Evernight Guild Archive

SANCTUM OFFICIUM (SO)

Charter

His summoning call thundered across the
virgin skies and shook the very earth with each syllable. Thus were his
children brought forth. From the darkest bowels of the underworld they
came, slithering and groaning their way up
through the earth until at last the surface broke and they poured forth
into the lands of Maxim. Hordes of demon-kind, each one moulding itself
into a hideous obscenity, all of them growling and snapping at one another
as they continued to spew out of the earth, each wave slipping and sliding
over the last, their slimy trails glistening malevolently in the cold
moonlight.

This went on for thirty days and thirty
nights. When the final demon had been released from the underworld silence covered the lands. The mass of obscenities looked up at the
heavens in total unity and bayed out as one, their terrible sound
shattering the sanity of any living creature within earshot. The baying
went on for what seemed like
years; they were crying out for a blessing from their master, their
father, the
one true God. When Darden heard their cries a single solitary tear fell
from his right eye and plummeted down toward the lands.

The Shadows of pariah, dread beings of pure
living darkness that live in the realm between the earth and the heavens,
saw the tear and swirled around it, probing it until one of them made a
tiny hole through which they all slipped, instantly transforming the clear
drop into a tear of purest black, purest despair. Great bolts of lightning forked their way
through the skies, wrapping electric fingers around the tear until bands
of white separated the black and the tear of Darden solidified into a huge
dew-drop shaped mass of Onyx. Maxim trembled when the tear crashed into
the ground and the
demons formed a great circle around it. Each one of them knew what must be
done and together they began the task. Huge claws and teeth scraped at the
Onyx until it was hollowed out, releasing the Shadows of pariah who in
turn created a great altar which they then sanctified as a place of
worship.

This was to be an eternal place where only
followers of Darden would ever be truly welcome and pretenders would be
destroyed by the living shadows. This is the Onyx Temple.

Very well, though this is becoming rather tiresome, I'll explain it to you
once more. If you still don't understand then I'll be forced to use..
other methods, are we clear?

Good.

Everything begins with darkness and everything will end with it. You were
born and you will die. Such things are certainties, my dear. Light will always give
way to darkness, be it an insignificant shadow that lurks in the corner or
an overpowering blanket of pure night, one way or another the darkness
will achieve its victory, make no mistake about this fact. There
are none among your kind that can honestly say
you are so devoted to the ways of goodness and light that you have never
had doubts clawing into your mind like an insidious malaise, urging you to
embrace the enticing melody of Despair. Perhaps you can fight such
feelings, push them down deeper and deeper until they go away. The real
question is, can you do this for the rest of your natural life? I see that
you're nodding your head but we all know that no
matter how far you push darkness away, it will return.

Give in to it. Let yourself feel the Despair, allow yourself one tiny sip
from His bowl. One drop is all it takes for the dishonesty of self
restraint to end. Then you will be truly free, then you will be yourself
and not a hideous caricature of society's expectations. They say that
beauty is skin deep and we know that this is true, tear away that skin and
reveal the majestic beauty that lay beneath.

Demons, you say? Well, this is one of the names that we have been given, along with fiends
and monsters. Hah! Do such names make you feel better about us? Does it
offer a sense of superiority to be able to give us a derisory label? If
you gave the name dryness to rain would it stop being wet? If you call the
sky ground would you then be able to walk upon it? Look beyond the labels
and you will see that even though some of us were just like you, we have
evolved into something far superior, far more beautiful. Come now, take
that first step and shed your primitive ways. Become enlightened.

Liars and tricksters? Oh come now, stop using these deluded terms that you all favour so much when speaking about us in hushed
whispers. Why should we lie? What need can we possibly have for tricks?
No, this term is borne of fear, your fear that even though our words go
against everything you've been fooled into believing, they may actually
stand up to scrutiny. You are the ones who weave webs of deceit, you are
the ones who smile when stabbing a friend in the back, you are the
ones who make promises and break them as soon as a better deal comes
along. These ways are not ours, they are yours. Are you so blind you
cannot see that your kind are the liars? You are the tricksters, my
sweet naive one.

We have no need for lies when the truth is a much sweeter tasting fruit.

Hold your tongue, child, for I know what the next word that slips from it
will be. Zealots, yes? I thought as much. Now, let's take a closer look at
the meaning of this word. A zealot by it's very definition is a highly
devoted follower of some ideal. In this case, the ideal is faith. Does it
scare you that we actually believe in the things we preach? It's a
far cry from the ways of your own priests isn't it? They say one thing and
do another. We believe in what we say and we lead by example, my dear. If
this makes us zealots then I will wear the label with complete devotion.

So then, what's it to be? Are you content to carry on living the lies that
we have revealed to you or will you allow yourself to step into our truth?
Will you tear away the shackles of deceit that your religious leaders have
clasped upon your hands and feet? Join us, for we are the true faithful.
We are the children of darkness and we conduct a bitter-sweet symphony of
revelation. You have never been able to hide from us, so stop hiding from
yourself.

Hmm? Yes, yes we did disappear
for a time but did you really expect us to
disappear forever? Can you honestly tell yourself that it is possible
for us to slink away into hiding and remain there like frightened little
children? If you can answer this with a resounding "Yes", then you have
our pity. Such wishful thinking is for fairy tales and court jesters. We
have always been here upon this Isle in one form or another, softly
whispering our words into your ears, gently corrupting your loved ones
with our sweet promises of seductive pain and animal lust. Every single
one of you has a weakness, this is a certainty without exception. We
pride ourselves on finding this weakness and exploiting it until your
mind falls apart or achieves the final revelation that is Darden's despair.
You prefer to look at what we do as monstrous and atrocious acts of
inhumanity when we are, in fact, saving you from yourselves.

Never forget that darkness is
constant, absolute. We are the chaos within the darkness. We are
constant. We are Darden's chosen ones, His bowl spills out it's Despair
upon us and for this we offer our thanks and praise. True faith is what
we offer you all, open yourselves to Him and let his song reverberate
through your spirit until the darkness accepts you as one of it's own.
Come now, throw down your false beliefs and beg to sup from His bowl.